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Thursday, 21 April 2016

South suburban stylist uses hair clippings in Oak Forest art exhibit

When Oak Forest artist Anastasia Zappas-Raptis gets inspired, her work literally comes off the top of her head.

That's because the owner of Zappas Salon in Tinley Park uses the shorn locks of her clients' hair as well as her own to help create artwork.

Zappas-Raptis said the idea of using hair as an art medium came to her several years ago when she was looking for a place to recycle the thousands of pieces of cut hair swept up in her salon every day. She said she saw hair as a resource rather than refuse, but she couldn't find anyone to take it.

But Zappas-Raptis said she let her creative juices flow. She began bleaching, dyeing and affixing the hair to canvas, creating art depicting everything from icons to portraits. She hung most of it in her Oak Forest home, and friends and family loved it, she said.